To upgrade, or not to upgrade? (GTX 260)

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Lanessar

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Aug 11, 2007
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I figured I would run an upgrade by the community here. I'm mainly playing games which aren't extremely challenging and my current system "does alright", so I'm not looking to upgrade the CPU or Mobo at this time.

System setup currently is:

A8-3870K BE AMD CPU
BioStar A75MH mobo
8GB DDR3
256GB SSD boot drive with a 1TB data drive
260 GTX Core 216 Nvidia

I've been eyeing a Radeon HD 7850 2GB for a little over $100. Not sure if there is a real-world improvement over the 260, however, with the CPU and mobo combo - bottlenecking and all that. Currently playing FFXIV, and the 260 has run pretty much every game I've been playing before at very high settings, maintaining about 40fps on even beta games (not optimized).

I'm aware that I would see very little improvement throwing down for a $300 video card, so I'm more looking for "bang for the buck" before I ultimately (next year, most likely) start doing a fresh top-of-the-line Intel build.
 
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Onus
Well, the HD7850 is a four-tier jump over the GTX260. If you want to raise some settings, or are playing some newer games and your FPS has been dropping, I'd say for only $100 it is probably worthwhile. That price looks great.
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Onus

Onus

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Jan 27, 2006
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Well, the HD7850 is a four-tier jump over the GTX260. If you want to raise some settings, or are playing some newer games and your FPS has been dropping, I'd say for only $100 it is probably worthwhile. That price looks great.
 
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smorizio

smorizio

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Jan 22, 2010
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The newer 650 or 7850 will give you higher fame rate then the older card and run cooler and use less power then the older card. Your old card is a directx 9x card only the newer card can run dirxt 10 and the newer cards do 11x. With a better gpu the game going run smoother as the CPU has to work less.
 
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Lanessar

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Aug 11, 2007
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Okay, so there's a real-world improvement in the video quality on a game? I'm rather practical. I see the specs being tossed up that this card gives 10 more FPS over 60 FPS but costs $100 more, that type of stuff, and other than bragging rights, I don't see the real-world benefit (especially when CPU and RAM might limit top performance).
 
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coozie7

coozie7

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Jun 2, 2007
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@ Lanessar: What Operating system is installed? What is the monitor resolution?
For <>$100 the HD7850 is a decent upgrade and will not be held back by the current CPU if you're playing at 1680x1050 or more resolution.
The GTX260 is actually a DX10 card, not DX9.
 
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Lanessar

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I'm running Win7 64-bit with a 24-inch, 1920x1080 resolution monitor. Thanks for the reminder on the DX10, been a while since I looked at specs.
 
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coozie7

coozie7

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Jun 2, 2007
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I suspect you're running at either lower than native resolution or at quite low settings to get those framerates.
The rest of the system is actually quite good, and well worth the cost of a HD7850 (140$ upwards), although I'd suggest sticking with Nvidia and opting for a GTX650Ti Boost (little more, but smoother gameplay).
 
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Lanessar

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Aug 11, 2007
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I ended up getting the 7850 2GB for $98 (clearance at a local mom and pop). The GTI650 was running about $60 more, and I couldn't justify that expense over the 7850 for a few fps difference.

As to the old 260, I ran FFXIV at high settings, 1920x1080. It worked fine (about 60 or so fps) until there were many (read: 10 or more) players doing a fate, then it dropped to the 25-35 range. The CPUs were not capped out.
 
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